The Argus Leader recently published a letter in which the writer said that AR-15 rifles are made for killing people and one could not hunt with them. Why did the Argus Leader publish that? Nothing could be further from the truth in those statements. One could paint black any number of semi-auto “deer” rifles that have been around for up to 100 years and have the equivalent to – or a more powerful “AR-15” (not the dreaded EBR/Evil Black Rifle, but rather the MSR/Modern Sporting Rifle to those enlightened). And, AR-15s are used for hunting in the original cartridge configuration and optional cartridge configurations by many thousands of hunters every year. The Argus Leader had to have known that.

In addition, after reading a recent column by a Vietnam veteran, I’ve noticed:

1. He’s yet another one that claims that the AR-15 is only useful for killing people; and

2. For every veteran who never wants to see his M-16 again, many other veterans, including myself, want an M-16 clone/AR-15 to remind them of their service. A special model of AR-15 is available to them that looks like the M-16-A1 that most (special units had other variants) used, but that has been surpassed by many upgrades.

It’s all cosmetics. There are many engineering designs that function in a semi-automatic mode. (FWIW, AR stands for Armalite Rifle, the company that developed it, not Assault Rifle or Automatic Rifle).

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